Can I Lay By Your Side
by paletalewriter
Summary: The night after 3X5. (Extended scene) "I can't see the future." Magnus speaks the words into his hands. "I can't tell you that everything is going to be fine. I can't make you promises that I have no hope of keeping. I won't." Both men feel each word like a sharp point on the jugular. Each smarting in their own hopelessness. The words ringing truer than either would ever admit.


**Hello my lovelies. Here is a new little something I wrote at work in like an hour. Last nights episode (s3e5) literally killed me, and I couldn't get this out of my head. What the evening might have looked like after such a heavy subject was breached in their relationship. It looked like they were both hurting a lot, and I wanted to dive a little deeper.**

 **Please enjoy, forgive any grammatical errors, and let me know what you think.**

 **-Cheers**

The night has fallen into a dark haze. Only a few words shared between the two lovers throughout the evening. They'd fallen into bed, exhausted, naked, and in total silence. Magnus's head pressed to his pillow and eyes up to his ceiling, Alec's breath across his ribs, nose pressed to his side. The young hunter hadn't been able to look him in the eye since this afternoon's discussion.

Magnus should have known. The kiss he'd received from Alec after their seemingly empty _I love you's_ was nearly as hollow as the eerily quiet that they now share together. He's hurting. He's not okay. And there is nothing Magnus can say in this moment to soothe that ache.

His own stomach churns with today's events rolling around uncomfortably in his mind. The client this morning had dredged up ancient feelings and memories that he hadn't thought about in decades.

The box was never meant to be seen by his love. He knew such a thing would upset the young boy. With a short-sighted view of their new love, Alec couldn't see the future any more that Magnus could. But the past was hurting him with ease.

Seeing a glimpse of the dimly lit path of inevitable heartbreak brought them both to the edge today. Dangling them over the side and threatening to drop them. Threatening to crumple everything they've built these past few months into nothing but a pile of broken parts and unexplored possibilities.

Magnus feels the hitched breath of Alec's silent tears across his feverish skin. The young hunter with an arm slung over the warlock's abdomen quivers as he attempts to hold back the emotions that overtake him. Breaking down after a day of being _fine._

He'd longed to speak to someone, _anyone_ , about what he and Magnus had discussed. But Izzy had been gone when he got to the institute, and Jace was distracted. There was no one. When had Magnus become the only person willing to make the time? To ask the hard questions. The thought is more painful than he's willing to take on at the moment, so he instead burrows further into Magnus's side, pressing his face to the space between Magnus's rib cage and the mattress. Taking deep breaths that shake without his permission.

"I don't know how to feel." His words are muffled against Magnus's skin, but the warlock hears him clear as day. The honest words laced with pain cut into Magnus like a hot knife.

"I know angel…" Magnus breathes, keeping his eyes on the roof of his bedroom, arms splayed above him on the pillows and in his hair. Not sure if Alec wants to be touched. Not sure if he wants to touch.

He feels the hot breath of his lover down his side, warming the sheets below him as he attempts to take control of whatever emotions are plaguing him beyond comprehension. It's the hardest thing to witness. It's the saddest and loneliest he's even been in the presence of the boy laying next to him. The urge to be alone is strong. The wanting for an empty bed to sob into and drench in tears almost makes him open his mouth. Tell Alec he needs time. Space. That he would like him to leave.

Only his heart aches at the thought of Alec getting up from this bed. The finality of it would be worst of all. Like perhaps if he left now, he might never return to this loft that today he'd wanted to call him home.

"I need you to tell me again." Alec's lips move against Magnus's last rib, the words small and hitching with withheld sobs.

Magnus's eyes shut, tears threatening to burn him from the inside out.

"Alexander."

"Please." The word breaks on the hunters lips, falling in shards to the bed below them, along with a few tears that slip down the bridge of his nose, turning the gold sheets a dark copper.

Without opening his eyes, Magnus speaks to the darkness of his eyelids, grasping onto any sanity that the dark offers. It's not enough. It's an artificial kind of comfort.

"I love you. More than I can tell you. More that I can make you understand." With a voice deep with tears and a hand that falls into Alec's hair, naked fingers pushing through the unkempt mess, he can almost convince himself this is the first time Magnus has ever spoken these words to anyone. That he's the only person Magnus has ever loved with all of his heart.

The reality of that untruth wraps him in a vise of guilt and irrational anger. How dare he be jealous of those who came before him? It's cruel. It's unfair. But it does not stop the feelings from taking over all reasonable thought. Rational thought broke like a fragile wishbone the moment he decided to open that box. Only in this scenario, no one is the winner. Not now that he can see. He can never, and will never be Magnus's one love. Perhaps one in a long line. But never the one. And the thought alone is enough to drive him insane.

"And you have all of me. Everything I am. I will empty myself for you, let you sift through my broken parts and you can take what you like." tears slip from the corners of Magnus's eyes, down his temples and into his ears. Muffling the quiet sob that Alec tries to stop in his throat. It comes out in bursts of air on Magnus's side, burning his bare skin. Branding him with the pain that his past has brought to this innocent man sharing his bed. "You are so good Alexander."

"I'm not." Alec shakes his head, hair brushing Magnus's chest, nose bending into the warm skin of his naked companion, open and bleeding next to him like a wound of raw panic and regret. "I'm not."

"Oh but you are." Magnus's dull nails scrape across Alec's scalp, drawing another shaking breath from the hunter. "You don't give yourself enough credit. You tear yourself apart and stop your heart from beating for the things you need. The desires you have. You are your own worst critic. Your worst enemy-"

"Stop-"

"My darling…" Magnus nearly squirms with the wreck of sadness that envelopes him, his body contorting with pain as he watches what was so beautiful in the dark become so excruciating in the light of day. Left to witness his past bring nothing but heartbreak to his sweet Alec as he tries desperately to convince him of the truth. "Please, you have to know that I love you."

Alec wants to look up. Look at the emotions playing across the face of the man he adores as he begs for Alec to believe him. How can he look at the pain his doubt is causing?

He doesn't.

"Tell me that everything is going to be okay." Alec's tongue dips out, catching one of his tears that rolls down Magnus's side. Tasting the salt that he's marked his lovers skin with. Tainting his perfection with his mortality.

Magnus doesn't speak, his fingers numb in Alec's hair.

"Tell me that we're going to find a way for this to work."

Nothing. Silence.

"Promise me that I get to stay here. With you. That you don't have to lose me like everyone else."

Magnus's stomach quivers under Alec's palm, giving away the pain that wracks him. Each desperate word from Alec puncturing his heart in a new way. Drawing out a beautiful picture that is completely out of Magnus's reach.

"I can't." Magnus chokes, lifting his hand from Alec's hair and pressing his hands to his tear streaked face. Breathing into sweaty palms and trying to control the panic that rises in his throat. No one sees this part. No one witnesses the fall. Everyone is always long gone before he lets himself feel the wretched grief that comes with losing a loved one.

And he's lost so many…

" _Magnus_ ," Alec begs, turning onto his stomach, pressing his face into the mattress, his ear to Magnus's side. He can hear the beating of that broken heart in Magnus's aching body.

"I can't see the future." Magnus speaks the words into his hands. "I can't tell you that everything is going to be fine. I can't make you promises that I have no hope of keeping. I won't." Both men feel each word like a sharp point on the jugular. Each smarting in their own hopelessness. The words ringing truer than either would ever admit.

Alec's palm runs over Magnus's stomach, up his chest and down his shoulder, in search of a comforting hand that he finds pressed to the warlock's face. Tension in the tendons and long fingers that Alec pries away and holds gingerly in his shaking hand. It's damp with tears, he's still unable to look up at his partner's face.

Magnus's fingers respond to Alec's touch with ease. Lacing together like they have dozens of times before. No silver adorning his bare hands as the two grip onto each other like lifelines. As if they are the means to keep the other from drowning in a storm.

"Lie then." Alec murmurs, finally lifting his tear soaked, blotchy face from the sheets.

Magnus's eyes are on him. They're golden, and bloodshot, and bright with tears; and they are so far away that Alec can hardly stand to look at them.

"What?" There is not volume to it as Magnus questions the young man who clings to his side and begs him for the dishonesty that will soothe his wounds and offer him the only kind of relief he needs in this moment.

Alec swallows, closing his eyes as fresh tears threaten.

"Lie. Tell me that I'm the only man you've ever loved. Tell me there was never anyone else. Tell me that immortality can't tear us apart. Tell me I wont end up an old relic in a box of memories you can't remember. Tell me I can stay with you. Forever." Alec swallows the sobs that claw up his throat and try to suffocate him. "Please just lie…"

Magnus quite nearly whimpers at the pain that Alec's words bring through him. Like a flame to his skin, the weight of the request melts through the last of his control. The last of the days reasonable thoughts. Hands scrubbing at his swollen eyes, he swallows hard against his raw throat. Magnus slides off his pillow and onto the mattress. Turning into Alec, their noses almost touch as he breathes a shaking breath.

Alec can't look at him. Magnus can't look at Alec. Their eyes are in their hair and on their mouths, afraid of what they'll find if they look into each other's wild eyes.

Magnus opens his mouth, no words coming for a long while. Unsure of what hurts more. Both the silence and the words scorch the moment with fear and uncertainty.

"You're the only man I've ever loved." Magnus's voice is low and rough as sandpaper. Alec can feel the whisper on his face, Magnus's breath on his mouth. It's a lie. They both know it. It feels disrespectful, they both feel it. But Alec is bleeding out. His broken spirit in Magnus's careful hands. These words like ice to a burn. "There was never anyone else."

Alec scrunches his eyes closed, their locked fingers lifted between them to Magnus's mouth, the warlock's next words spoken against the skin on the back of Alec's hand.

"Immortality cannot tear us apart." He's hardly speaking loud enough for Alec to hear. He's hardly breathing. "You will never become just an old relic in a box."

Magnus _wanted_ this to be true. He needed it to be true. Because a life where he can't remember Alexander Lightwood was a life that he didn't want. He needs to remember every detail.

He _has_ to remember the sound of Alec sleeping peacefully next to him, the soft snores in the otherwise silent space. He needs to remember the smile that pulls at his lips and crinkles his eyes when Magnus offers him a compliment. The way he touches the back of his neck when he's nervous and stressed. The line that forms between his brows when he worries about the people he loves. The soft and desperate sounds he makes when they make love.

He has to remember it all.

But time is cruel. It breaks precious moments into fragments, while a few stick in Magnus's mind, the rest get caught up in the breeze and drift away. The people in his life becoming like dreams. Distant characters in a silent movie. A beautiful novel with chapters missing.

"You can stay-" the word breaks and Magnus's eyes close, drawing a deep breath before he tries again. "With me. We can _be together_ …"

 _Forever_ , dies on his tongue.

The missing word rings in Alec's head as if Magnus had screamed it. It's absence fractures the artificial ease that the lies had created in Alec's heart.

Forever means something so different to them both.

The silence is bloated and goes on for decades. It stretches both men to their limits and leaves them wrung out and used up as their tears dry on their skin and their gripping hands become passive in each other's palms.

"Alec," The name is sweet. The tone is soothing. Magnus's eyes watch the damp lashes of the hunter flicker and move, and finally reveal those perfect hazel eyes, still downing in too much moisture.

" _Alexander…_ "

Alec shakes his head, hair scratching against the sheets, releasing his hand from Magnus's he lifts it to his lover's face. The soft pad of his thumb catches the last tear in the corner of that golden eye. Unwilling to hear any more.

Magnus shivers, his face crumpling once again in the agony the moment washes him with. The contents of the box forcing his mind into dark places of loss that he's suffocating in. And the hunter only blames himself.

"I'm sorry." Alec whispers into the small space.

"Please don't." Magnus shakes his head, Alec's thumb drawing soothing circles across Magnus's flushed cheekbone.

"I'm so sorry."

"Alexander _stop…_ " It's a plea of mercy. It's a white flag. It's a painful exclamation of _I'm not okay._

"Magnus," Alec moves closer, nose sliding against nose, hair mingling on the mattress. "My love," The soft words pull yet another quiet sob from Magnus as he tries to put space between them. Alec's hands stop him from doing just that.

"Forgive me…" Alec's words move against Magnus's lips. They taste each other's tears and breathe each other's breath.

And in the moment, with a kiss barely brushing the lips of two lost and broken boys, they realise that they will not be okay tonight. There is no easy answer. No magical solution to fix the rift that's torn through their paradise.

Tonight is about surviving. It's about scrambling to pick up the pieces. It's about holding onto one another without strangling the life out of each other. It's about balance and understanding. About breathing in and breathing out. It's also about this moment. This one moment of security. Where they don't have to think about goodbye.

Not yet.

When Magnus turns away, he drags Alec with him. Securing the hunter's strong arm around him and clutching Alec's hand to his chest like it's a precious thing. Alec's body moulds to the shape of Magnus, leaving nothing between them as Alec buries his face in Magnus's soft hair, and Magnus buries his face in his pillow, finally allowing himself to be wracked with the sobs that he's swallowed down for hours. His stomach aches with the strength of them, his entire body tortured by the painful cries that are muffled only by the soft down underneath his head.

Alec listens. Hearth aching and pounding, soothing lips in his lovers hair, on his neck as he attempts to chase away the demons of Magnus's past that tonight stand tall above everything else. He waits and he waits for Magnus to tire himself out. For his gut wrenching cries to turn into soft hiccups that eventually transform into deep, thick breaths against Alec's palm.

And finally, with his broken lover cradled in his unworthy and incapable arms, he drifts into a sleep that mutes the pain and holds the ghosts at bay,

at least for a little while.


End file.
